1. |
Sonnet No. 1
04:36
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Non havria Ulysse o qualunqu’atro mai
Più accorto fu, da quel divino aspetto
Pien di gratie, d’honor et di rispetto
Sperato qual i’ sento affari e guai.
Pur, Amour, co i begli occhi tu fatt’hai
Tal piaga dentro al mio innocente petto,
Di cibo et di calor già tuo ricetto,
Che rimedio non v’è si tu n’el dai.
O sorte dura, che mi fa esser quale
Punta d’un Scorpio, et domandar riparo
Contr’el velen’ dall’istesso animale.
Chieggo li sol’ ancida questa noia,
Non estingua el desir a me si caro,
Che mancar non potrà ch’i’ non mi muoia.
…
Not even Ulysses, or someone as wise as he,
Would guess that a face like yours—so full of grace
And honor and respect—such a divine face—
Could bring suffering like the pain you’re causing me.
Yes, Love, your eyes in all their piercing beauty
Have stabbed my innocent breast in the same place
Once nourished and kept warm in your embrace;
And still, you are my only remedy.
Hard destiny makes me act like one who’s been
Stung by a scorpion but still hopes to heal,
Taking an antidote of the same poison.
I am wounded. I ask you only to kill the pain,
But not to extinguish the burning I crave to feel,
This desire whose broken life would break my own.
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2. |
Sonnet No. 2
02:53
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O beaus yeux bruns, ô regars destournez,
O chaus soupirs, ô larmes espandues,
O noires nuits vainement atendues,
O jours luisans vainement vainement retournez:
O tristes pleins, ô désirs obstinez,
O tems perdu, ô peines despendues,
O mile morts mile rest tendues,
O pires maus contre moy destinez.
O ris, ô front, cheveus, bras, mains et doits:
O lut plaintif, viole, archet et vois:
Tant de flambeaus pour ardre une femmelle!
De toy me plein, que tant de feus portant,
En tant d’endrois d’iceus mon coeur tatant,
N’en est sur toi volé quelque estincelle.
…
Ah handsome brown eyes—ah eyes that turn away—
Ah burning sighs; ah tears that stretch so far;
Ah night I wait in vain for, without a star;
Ah luminous and vainly returning day—
Oh sad complaints; oh love’s stubborn play;
Oh lost hours; oh water pain and war;
Oh thousands deaths, each in a tightened snare;
Oh sullen evils that design against my way.
Ah laugh, ah forehead, hair, arm, hand, and finger,
Ah plaintive lute, viola, bow, and singer—
So many flames to engulf one single woman!
I despair of you; you carry so many fires
To touch my secret places and desires,
But not one spark flies back, to make you human.
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3. |
Sonnet No. 6
02:43
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Deus ou trois fois bienheureus le retour
De ce cler Astre, et plus heureus encore
Ce que son oeil de regarder honore.
Que celle là recevroit un beau jour,
Qu’elle pourroit se vanter d’un bon tour
Qui baiseroit le plus beau don de Flore,
Le mieus sentant que jamais vid Aurore,
Et y feroit sur mes levres sejour!
C’est à moy seule à qui ce bien est dù,
Pour tant de pleurs et tant de tems perdu:
Mais le voyant, tant lui feray de feste,
Tant emploiray de mes yeux le pouvoir,
Pour dessus lui plus de credit avoir,
Qu’en peu de temps feray grande conqueste.
…
It’s twice happy, three times happy, the return
Of his Star. And happier in turn
Is she his gaze will honor: I discern
How she will spend a happy day’s sojourn,
So very proud of the rare luck she will earn
When Flora’s gifts, of handsomest kisses, burn—
The most fragrant lessons Aurora could ever learn,
She on whose lips that sweet bliss will adjourn!
And I am the one to whom this gift should go,
For all my Teras, and my time lost in woe.
So, when I see him, I will show my best,
Using my eyes so well in all their power
That I’ll have the advantage; in the short hour,
I’ll make myself a very grand conquest.
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4. |
Sonnet No. 8
05:39
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Je vis, je meurs: je me brule et me noye.
J’ay chaut estreme en endurant froidure:
La vie m’est et trop molle et trop dure.
J’ay grans ennuis entremeslez de joye:
Tout à coup je ris et je larmoye,
Et en plaisir maint grief tourment j’endure:
Mon bien s’en va, et à jamais il dure:
Tout en un coup je seiche et je verdoye.
Ainsi Amour inconstamment me meine:
Et quand je pense avoir plus de douleur,
Sans y penser je me treuve hors de peine.
Puis, quand je croy ma joye estre certeine,
Et estre au haut de mon desiré heur,
Il me remet en mon premier malheur.
…
I live, I die: I burn and I also drown.
I’m utterly hot and I feel cold.
Life is too soft and too hard for me to hold;
My joy and my heavy burden are mixed in one.
I laugh at the same time that I weep and frown;
The tarnish of grief has marred my pleasure’s gold;
My good flies away, but stays until it’s old;
I wither just as I find out that I’ve grown.
This is how love guides me, so changeably
That when I think the pain has me controlled,
With my very next thought I find I am free.
Then, just as I trust in joy so certainly
That the peak of a yearned-for hour makes me bold,
He shows me my familiar grief unfold.
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5. |
Sonnet No. 12
02:32
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Lut, compagnon de ma calamité,
De mes soupirs témoin irréprochable,
De mes ennuis controlleur véritable,
Tu as souvent avec moy lamenté:
Et tant le leur piteus t’a molesté,
Que commençant quelque son delectable,
To le rendois tout soudein lamentable,
Feignant le ton que plein avoit chanté.
Et si tu veus efforcer au contraire,
Tu te destens et si me contreins taire:
Mais me voyant tendrement soupirer,
Donnant faveur à ma tant triste pleinte:
En mes ennuis me plaire suis contreinte,
Et d’un tous mal douce fin espérer.
…
Lute, my companion in calamity,
Irreproachable witness of my sighs,
Faithful secretary of all my cries,
You have lamented so often with me
That my tears have driven you deep into pity.
Now, if a delicious sound starts to arise,
You turn it back to a sad lament, disguise
It with tones you’ve sung so much more frequently.
No matter how I try to force you the other way,
You struggle, and loosen your strings, and steal away
My song. Still, when you watch my tender sighing,
Indulging me, listening again while I complain,
I know pleasure, I find an opposite in my pain,
And hope sweet suffering will lead me to sweet dying.
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6. |
Sonnet No. 18
06:15
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Baise m’encor, rebaise moy et baise:
Donne m’en un de tes plus savoureus,
Donne m’en un de tes plus amoureus:
Je t’en rendray quatre plus chaus que braise.
Las, te pleins tu? Ça que ce mal j’apaise,
En t’en donnant dix autres doucereus.
Ainsi meslans nos baisers tant heureus
Jouissons nous l’un de l’autre à notre aise.
Lors double vie à chacun en suivra.
Chacun en soy et son ami vivra.
Permets m’Amour penser quelque folie:
Tousjours suis mal, vivant discrettement,
Et ne me puis donner contentement,
Si hors de moy ne fay quelque saille.
….
Kiss me again, remiss me, and then kiss
Me again, with your richest, most succulent
Kiss; then adore me with another kiss, meant
To steam out fourfold the very hottest hiss
From my love-hot coals. Do I hear you moaning?
This is my plan to soothe you: ten more kisses, sent
Just for your pleasure. Then, both sweetly bent
On love, we’ll enter joy through doubleness,
And we’ll each have two loving lives to tend:
One in our single self, one in our friend.
I’ll tell you something honest now, my love:
It’s very bad for me to live apart.
There’s no way I can have a happy heart
Without some place outside myself to move.
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7. |
Sonnet No. 23
04:48
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Las! que me sert, que si parfaitement
Louas jadis me tresse doree,
Et de me yeus la beauté comparee
A deus Soleils, dont Amour finement
Tira les traits causez de ton tourment?
Ou estes vous, pleurs de peu de duree?
Et Mort par qui devoit estre honoree
Ta ferme amour et iteré serment?
Donques c’estoit le but de ta malice
De m’asservir sous ombre de service?
Pardonne moy, Ami, à cette fois.
Estant outree et de despit et d’ire:
Mais je m’assur’, quelque part que tu sois,
Qu’autant que moy tu soufres de martire.
…
What good is it how well, alas, you sang
Those long-ago praises to my rich gold hair,
Or told me that my gorgeous eyes compared
To suns from which Love’s brightest arrows sprang,
Tormenting you again with each sharp new pang?
Oh tears, that dry so quickly in the air;
Oh Death, on which you promised you would swear
Your love—and where your solemn vows still hang
(Or was the aim of your deceitful malice
To enslave me, while seeming to be in my service?).
This time, oh love, I know you’ll pardon me
This tangle of all my anger and grief entwined;
Since I know for sure, wherever you may be,
You endure your martyrdom, I do mine.
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Thomas Oboe Lee Cambridge, Massachusetts
Thomas Oboe Lee was born in China in 1945. He lived in São Paulo, Brazil, for six years before coming to the United States in 1966. After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, he studied composition at the New England Conservatory and Harvard University. He has been a member of the music faculty at Boston College since 1990. ... more
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